Huang Semiotic

7/31/2019 Huang Semiotic

1/18

A Semiotic View of Information: Semiotics as a

Foundation of LIS Research in Information Behavior

Sheng-Cheng Huang

School of Information, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station

D7000, Austin, TX 78712-0390 [email protected]

Traditional information behavior studies in library and information science (LIS)

research have focused on primarily two trends: one is to provide physical access

to material objects and the other is to direct users to certain thoughts and ideas.

Both focuses are two sides of the same problem that LIS researchers have

worked to address: how to provide a better system or service to accommodate

peoples need for information. Among the domains of users, material objects,

and meaningful ideas, applying the concept of information as sign with semiotics

not only joins these two trends in the analysis of the pragmatic-syntactic

relationship and the pragmatic-semantic relationship, but it also gives an

additional focus on the syntactic-semantic relationship. It is this additional focus

that helps LIS professionals/researchers understand an individuals states of

knowing and ways of obtaining knowledge through physical and mentalinteractions with informative objects. The author conducts a review of

information studies, the epistemological concerns and pragmatic traditions in

LIS, and semiotics in an attempt to seek a holistic principle that will incorporate

both the traditional trends of LIS research and provide an additional awareness

in assisting users to make connections between material objects and ideas in

information behavior studies. By applying a semiotic view of information and the

concept of information as sign, LIS researchers of information behavior will find

semiotics a useful epistemological framework.

Introduction

Information as a term, concept, or subject of study poses a problem for anyone who

wants to define it in a comprehensive way. The study of information has proved to be

diverse, and it is difficult to restrict its definition (Machlup & Mansfield, 1983). Many use

the term information to refer to facts, knowledge, news, and opinions delivered and


2/18

received during peoples various interactions with different media in the surrounding

environment. Through the years, different scientific fields have developed various theories

in telecommunication, computer science, and linguistics based on different definitions of

this word that is commonly used in peoples daily life.

The library and information science (LIS) research particularly focuses on providing people

with access to relevant information. This focus includes the emerging sub-discipline of thestudy of information behavior within LIS. The study of information behavior, especially

information seeking activities, comes from the observation of interactions between people

and material objects to understand how humans obtain knowledge in an individual or

social level. Wilson (1999, p. 249) stated that information behavior is the totality of

human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active

and passive information seeking, and information use. Pettigrew et al. (2001, p. 44)

defined information behavior as how people need, seek, give and use information in

different contexts. Many theories and models about information behavior have been

developed since the mid- to late 1990s following the long-standing tradition of LIS

research seeking a better understanding of relationships among users, material objects,

and ideas of thoughts (Fisher et al., 2005, xix). To provide a better system or service to

accommodate people's need for information, information behavior research faces the

complex challenge of bringing two traditional trends together: providing not only the

physical access to material objects but also access to the ideas that a user needs in

different situations in order to meet the purpose of increasing a user's knowledge in a

certain domain. To meet this challenge, many scholars have proposed different

approaches based on positivism, pragmatism, and phenomenology in LIS research (Budd,1995, 2005; Hjrland, 2005a, 2005b; Pettigrew & McKechnie, 2001; Sundin &

Johannisson, 2005). Information behavior in LIS research can be seen as influenced by the

concerns of epistemology because obtaining useful knowledge is the main purpose of an

information seeking activity (e.g. Budd, 2001; Hjrland, 2002). The concept of information

behavior is the act of communicative participation between human and information,

where knowledge is enacted through linguistic and physical actions whose significances

and relevance are judged by the consequences of such actions. In other words the

outcome of an information seeking activity depends on whether the information can

satisfy the purpose of increasing a person's knowledge in a certain domain. Since the

success of an information seeking activity depends on whether a person is satisfied with

the results, and success hinges on the practical results of a persons actions, it is

considered pragmatic (Sundin & Johannisson, 2005, p. 24). We should take a closer

look at what pragmatism suggests regarding how people obtain knowledge.

Classical pragmatism created by Charles Peirce (1839-1914), William James

(1842-1910), and John Dewey (1859-1952) is an American school of thought in


3/18

philosophy. Pragmatism states that knowledge is obtained through a person's struggles

with the environment, and it is through systematic or unsystematic inquiries such as

education, training, trials, practice, and social interactions that things in the

surroundings become meaningful and useful to the individual. Therefore, pragmatists are

concerned with the way individuals make and understand meaning, so that obtained

knowledge becomes useful to cope with the challenges given by the surrounding

environment. Peirce (1960) coined a triadic approach of investigating the relationships

among intelligent interpretant, symbol vehicle, and meaning of truth to explain the state

of knowing. Peirces approach started the study of signs, semiotics (or semiology).

Semiotics provides an analytical and complementary view that suggests a persons state

of knowing is through the process of deriving meanings from representations or of

creating representations to express meanings in an environment. The process of creating

and understanding meanings from signs can be divided into semantic, syntactic, and

pragmatic dimensions. The semantic dimension discusses the meaning of signs

(designatum); the syntactic dimension deals with the representation of signs (vehicle); and

the pragmatic dimension focuses on the user of signs (interpretant). The triadic

relationship of these three dimensions provides a fundamental framework for analyzing

how people interact with various media and derive meanings from them in an

environment. This shares a great similarity with the study of how people seek information

in need with a given system.

In this paper, I will attempt to show that the semiotic perspective of systematic inquiry for

knowledge will lead to a more holistic understanding of the subject of information

behavior in LIS research. This presentation of a semiotic view of information hopes to offera useful epistemological framework that would incorporate traditional trends of LIS

research and provide additional principles for information behavior studies in the future.

The Ambiguity of Information and the Studies of Information

Information is an ambiguous concept. While people casually use the term information in

many ways, to arrive at a precise definition that is agreeable to most of those who

consider themselves information scientists appears difficult. The concept of information isclosely related to other concepts such as data, news, message, instruction, knowledge,

meaning, communication, sign, and stimulus. Many speak of information to loosely

replace other specific terms used to describe peoples various interactions with different

media in their environments. Meanwhile, different scientific fields have their own

approaches to the study of information, each with different measurements and types of

data to either generalize or restrict the operational definition of information. The

diversity of the study of information makes finding a comprehensive definition difficult


4/18

(Machlup & Mansfield, 1983, p. 1). For instance, Svenonius (2000, p.7) regarded

information as something received or obtained through informing and as the content of

a message or something that is communicated. On the other hand, Buckland (1991)

classified types of information based on the concept of information as thing. Svenonius

and Bucklands definitions of the term information show two different attitudes

regarding the use of the word: one is to generalize the sense of the term through the act of

informing, and the other is to restrict it to refer to specific material objects. According to

the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest historical meaning of the word information in

English was the act of informing, or giving form or shape to the mind, as in education,

instruction, or training (1387), and can also refers to an item of training (1386). The

lexical explanations of the word show that to understand information involves at least two

parts: the act of informing and the item used to inform, and Svenonius and Bucklands

definition of information echoes the traditional use of the term.

Despite the original lexical explanations, common treatments of the term information in

different scientific fields are so diverse that scientists use the word/term to refer to ideas

that appear dissimilar or have no associations to each other. In Machlup and Mansfields

The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages, thirty-nine scientists across nine

different fields explained their concepts of information in their disciplines. These fields

include cognitive science, informatics, artificial intelligence, linguistics, library and

information science, cybernetics, information theory, system theory, and social science.

Information in different fields represents deviating concepts or measurements according

to different operational definitions. For instance, information in cybernetics, the theory of

communication and control of feedback, specifically means the feedback signals in anorganic or mechanical system. On the other hand, understanding how information is

communicated with linguistic methods focuses on deciphering the characteristics of

human languages. Thus, in order to determine what scholars and scientists mean by

information in their own terms, it becomes critical to first understand a fields culture.

The diversity of cultures in the study of information illustrates a combining set of

disciplines in science and the humanities, which leads to an interdisciplinary exploration

that is not restricted to a research territory that can claim to have achieved a

comprehensive understanding of information (Machlup & Mansfield, 1983, p. 4).

Despite the rich advancements in the studies of information, many concepts of

information, as Capurro and Hjrland (2002, p. 396) concluded, are embedded in more

or less explicit theoretical structures, and in studying information it is easy to lose ones

orientation. Machlup indicated that various definitions of information developed by

scientists have deviated from the two traditional meanings of the word, the telling of

something and that which is being told. He further stated that any restricted definitions

are either analogies and metaphors or concoctions resulting from condoned


5/18

appropriation of a word (1983, p. 642). Nevertheless, to understand such an ambiguous

concept as information studies shows, we cannot help but seek an operational definition

of a term or quantity, which would inevitably make differences in the theoretical approach

we use. Unfortunately, the study of information becomes so complex that, in certain

circumstances, it is akin to defining meaning, a subject that scholars and scientists tend

to avoid when developing theoretical models of human communication for practical use.

Claude E. Shannon, the father of information theory who engineered a breakthrough in

modeling telecommunication process, noted that messages (information) have

meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain

physical or conceptual entities. But he succinctly stated, These semantic aspects of

communication (the act of informing) are irrelevant to the engineering problem (Shannon

& Weaver, 1963, p. 1). Despite Shannons technical triumph in his original writing in 1948

when he equated information to entropy, a logarithmic quantity, and successfully isolated

communication signals from the meaning of information, which led to the fruitful

development of telecommunication technology, the mathematical approach of defining

information had its own limitation. Klir and Wierman (1999, p.5), while working to provide

mathematical measurement of information based on the concept of reduced uncertainty,

admitted that information measured solely by the reduction of uncertainty does not

capture the rich notion of information in human communication and cognition, and it is

not explicitly concerned with semantic and pragmatic aspects of information viewed in the

broader sense. In a broader sense, information is therefore inappropriate to be

restricted as a stand-alone object or a mathematical entity.

Research in LIS particularly focuses on providing people with access to relevant

information. Thus, LIS research primarily aims to understand the process and result of

peoples information seeking activities, and the relevance of the result holds the key to

the satisfaction of a person's information needs. Information in this regard is the

obtained meaningful product of consequential actions of a persons information behavior,

which Wilson (1999, p. 249) and Pettigrew et al. (2001, p. 44) defined as the totality of

human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active

and passive information seeking, and information use and how people need, seek, give

and use information in different context. Information behavior analyzes not only theapparent physical behaviors of using the system, but also the epistemological

development of an individual such as how people obtain knowledge through derived

meanings during the interaction with the system and information facilitated by it (e.g.

Budd, 2001; Hjrland, 2002). This distinctive interest of LIS research in epistemology will

lead us to a closer look of how meanings are made and understood by individuals in

various states of knowing.


6/18

The Epistemological Concern and Philosophical Pragmatism in LIS Research

The emphasis on epistemology for both research and practice has influenced LIS research

(e.g. Budd, 2001; Hjrland, 2002). Jesse Shera asserted that LIS is fundamentally an area

of practice and service that is concerned with bringing the human mind and information

together in a productive relationship. The process of bringing the human mind and

information together should serve as guides to the substantive contact of graphic

records in a systematic inquiry for knowledge where Shera believed that ideas, rather

than processes, tool, instruments, controls, gadgets, computers, methods, or means, must

be the primary concern of librarianship (Harmon, 1987, p. 215). Thus, the service of

librarianship should not stress providing physical access to material objects over and

above offering directions to the substantive content of ideas. The result of an information

behavior must appear meaningful to the user in order to accommodate the process of

obtaining knowledge about a certain subject domain.

The epistemological concerns for librarianship indicate the problems of intellectual and

physical access to recorded knowledge, which LIS research usually faces. Therefore, to

achieve a holistic understanding of a users information behavior, LIS research must

extend the discussion to take in not only a users physical behaviors but also a users state

of knowing. Understanding humans states of knowing has been traditionally discussed in

the philosophical community, and many scholars have proposed different philosophical

approaches based on positivism, pragmatism, and phenomenology to help establish

better epistemological tools to understand the phenomena of information behavior in the

LIS research (Budd, 1995, 2005; Hjrland, 2005a, 2005b; Pettigrew & McKechnie, 2001;

Sundin & Johannisson, 2005). In an extensive introduction to pragmatism and

neo-pragmatism, Sundin and Johannisson (2005, p. 24) suggested that knowledge is

enacted though linguistic and physical actions whose significances and relevance are

judged by the consequences of such actions. Classical pragmatism has been regarded as

an American tradition in philosophy developed by Charles Peirce (1839-1914), William

James (1842-1910), and John Dewey (1859-1952). Generally speaking, a pragmatic

approach of thinking is that a person is principally concerned with the practical results of

his/her actions (Sundin & Johannisson, 2005, p. 26). From a pragmatic view, whether or

not knowledge is meaningful depends on how useful it can help an individual cope with

the challenges given by the environment (Sundin & Johannisson, 2005, p. 27). Therefore,

pragmatists are particularly interested in understanding how meanings are made and

understood by individuals' struggles with the surrounding environment and how

individuals determine the significance of an idea at the end of consequential actions of

the struggle.


7/18

While empiricism and logical positivism offer that knowledge is viewed as something to

be discovered by the observant individual, the significance of pragmatism indicates that

obtained knowledge or belief is the result of an individuals thinking in the struggle of

coping with the challenges given by the surrounding environment. Rorty (1999, p. xxiif)

noted that with a Darwinian explanation, pragmatism establishes its approach regarding

knowledge as tools that will enable human beings to better survive in their environments.As Murphy (1990, p. 23) and Perice (1955, p. 270) stated the sole function of thought is

the production of beliefs upon which an individual is prepared to act. Pragmatism thus

denies that ideas without practical usefulness have a fundamental value for an individual.

James (1975, p. 34) further argued that to determine the significance of an idea or theory

is to see if it serves a certain purpose or has the power to work. Pragmatically speaking,

knowledge does not mean to reflect the outer world, which is contradictory to the

Cartesian paradigm, but serves the purpose of assisting people to cope with their

problems according to their situations. Whether an idea or theory becomes true or not is a

question of whether it provides a useful tool in making any difference to practice (Sundin

& Johannisson, 2005, p. 27).

Pragmatisms emphasis on how instrumental an idea or theory is to human purposes

becomes critical in judging the value and significance of a systematic inquiry for

knowledge. A typical pragmatic question is: What differences does the result of our

actions make? Hence, to determine the significance of the consequences of an

information behavior depends on how useful and meaningful the results appear to the

individual who interacts with the system, which is traditionally an important concept

appearing in LIS research such as user-centered approach of system design.

A Semiotic View of Information in LIS (Information as Sign)

Classical pragmatism deals with the instrumental relations among people, ideas,

knowledge, actions, and environments; however, as Murphy (1990, p. 25f) noted, it does

not offer an explicit explanation of how these relations are established. Peirce and Dewey

believed that the ability to use language is critical in the process of knowing, and linguistic

communication is the most important human practice. Thus, how specific ideas are

communicated through languages becomes important to pragmatists (Rorty, 1990, p. 3).

The concept of sign is essential with regard to language as a tool of systematic inquiry.

Understanding signs shares a common bond with understanding the process of the act of

reading (Brier, 1996; Wagner, 1992; Warner, 1990). Given the reason that the simplest

act of reading is to let humans become informed by interpretation, it is the nature of the

sign to be at least potentially informative (interpretable), available to be read and open to


8/18

interpretation (Raber & Budd, 2003, p. 508). With the act of reading, humans are

informed by signs or informative objects and, consequently, obtain ideas and knowledge

from them.

To understand how meanings are created and understood with language, Peirces study of

signs focused on the processes and effects of the production and reproduction, reception

and circulation of meaning in communication (Hodge & Kress, 1988, p. 261), which is thecomplementary process among components of the sign that gives meaning. Peirce (1931)

established the fundamental triadic relations of three components of the sign, which

Morris (1938) later designated as the semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic dimensions. The

observation of semiotics was based on a view of how humans (interpretant) establish the

connection between signifier (representation) and signified (meaning) in an environment.

Figure 1 shows the Peirce-Morris semiotic model of the concept of information as sign and

the corresponding dimensions base on the Ogden Triangle (c.f. Johansen, 1993, p.62;

Ogden & Richards, 1923). The semiotic triangle illustrates the relations among the user of

information, the representation of information, and the meaning of information. It

suggests that the information is created by users, establishing the connection between the

act of understanding representative symbols or objects and the production of signified

meanings in a functional communicative environment.


9/18

Figure 1. Information as Sign based on Peirce-Morris Semiotic Triangle

Based on Ledger Woods concept of referential transcendence, which stated that

knowledge is always of or about an actual or supposed object, Shera proposed a similar

triangular structure, suggesting that the process of knowing is a unity of subject, vehicle,

and object. The subject is the self, the perceiver; it may even be understood as the simple

act of awareness. The vehicle encompasses all that is given to the subject through which it

knows the object. The object is the ultimate goal or referent of knowledge, it is that which

the knowledge is about (Shera, 1972, p. 13). Shera indicated that in the library situation,

the library user is the subject; bibliographic apparatus is the vehicle; and the library's

recorded materials is the object. Sheras model corresponds with the semiotic triangle and

suggests that once the subject (the user of information) establishes the connection

between bibliographic apparatus (the representation of information) and the object, the

subject will ultimately obtain knowledge (the meaning of information) from the results of

this process. However, by accepting the concept of information as thing (Buckland, 1991)

to discuss the interactions between users and informative objects, the object Shera refers

to can be simply the representation of information that does not necessarily have inherent

meaning. From a semiotic view of information, the process of bridging an informative

object (signifier) with a specific idea (signified) is not as simple as it appears. As Raber

and Budd (2003, p. 508) indicated, the relation between signifier and signified can be

complex, as is the case in the relation between a text and its content. So, understanding

what an informative object (book, article, record) signifies, what it is about, and its

relevance or significance to the user, is not an easy task.

LIS and semiotics share concern with how humans establish the connection between

representation and meaning, as Raber and Budd (2003, p. 509) summarized two

fundamental problems of information retrieval: one is to assign accurate and adequate

representative descriptions for an informative object upfront, and the other is to assess

the relevance of retrieved results on the backend. These two problems are akin to the

concern with language that is used as a tool of systematic inquiry for knowledge

discussed in semiotics. The upfront problem of representative description about an object,

which is similar to what Saussure (1959, p. 9 and 11-13) referred to as the parole

situation in speaking, is that texts are created for the purpose of communication between

individuals and are unique products of choice, that is they are unlimited in variations of

what they could be (Raber & Budd, 2003, p. 510). The choices among the signifiers

(representation) that can link to a certain signified (meaning) could be unlimited because

of the nature of syntactic codes. In the library situation, bibliographic apparatus (signifiers)

without control will lose its accuracy and adequacy in representing an informative object


10/18

(signified). On the other hand, the backend problem of the relevance of retrieved results,

which is close to what Saussure (1959, p. 14) referred to as the langue situation in

language, is that the content of a text is a social phenomenon, constrained by history and

culture, and manifests shared concepts and meanings from which texts are constructed

(Raber & Budd, 2003, p. 510). The semantic attribute of a sign is created in the moment

of determining the significance of the connection between the chosen signifier

(representation) and the signified (meaning). How this signifier-signified connection is

established is greatly influenced by an individual's differences in both personal and social

levels. Thus, an informative object that is useful (meaningful) for one person might be

useless (meaningless) to another. Accordingly, in the library situation, the assessment of

the retrieved results relevance will depend on the users judgment of how well the

retrieved information fulfills their purposes.

The concerns of pragmatism with epistemology show that knowledge is the significant

consequence of individuals struggles with their environments. As information is the

product of the act of informing, the concept of information as thing must establish that

informative objects are signs in order to extend the discussion of the users physical

interactions with the system to include their mental states of knowing in information

behavior research. Semiotics suggests that to understand how an interpretant (the user of

information) constructs the relation between a signifier (the representation of information)

and a signified (the meaning of information) is making a complementary joint to

understand how a user find an informative objects (physical interactions with the system)

and obtain meaningful ideas from it (mental state of knowing) at the same time. In a

library situation, the users struggle to retrieve information in need is a repetitive practiceof constructing significant connections between bibliographic apparatus and informative

objects, between text and content, and between content and knowledge (Raber & Budd,

2003, p. 516), which hopefully will lead to the understanding of a certain idea, as Shera

referred to it. The concept of information as sign, which suggests that informations

material and cognitive aspects are equally important, echoes Neills (1987) assertion not

to exclusively focus on either side of the aspects in the study of information, and provides

a complementary way to connect both aspects together for a more holistic view of LIS

research.

Semiotics as a Foundation for LIS Research in Information Behavior

Early development of computer and information science regarded semiotics as its

paradigm and expected a broader application of it in language-based programs (Gorn,

1983; Pearson & Slamecka, 1983). Andersen (1991) defined computer semiotics as the

study of computer-based signs and the ways they function in communicative


11/18

environments. In addition, recent semiotic applications in computing and information

system design have suggested that the concept of semiotics is useful in the development

of semantic network, information systems, indexing, and natural language processing (e.g.

Andersen, 1997; Calway, 1995; Gonzalez, 1997; de Souza, 1993; Liu, 2000a, 2000b; Liu

et al., 1998, 1999; Mai, 2001; Resnik, 1999; Stamper et al., 2000). The approach of

semiotics exemplifies a workable model and three potential areas to address in the study

of information. Figure 2 illustrates an example of applying semiotic concepts using

entity-relationship diagram (ERD) (Chen, 1976) as a graphical notation for a conceptual

model that reflects an information behavior situation.

Figure 2. An entity-relationship diagram that reflects semiotic concepts

LIS has traditionally focused on either providing more convenient access to informative

materials or offering more instrumental directions to certain schools of ideas for users

with a system. The benefit of defining information with the semiotic triangle is that it

provides a more holistic observation of the relations among the user, the representation,

and the meaning in the act of informing, which does not partially focus on either the

material or cognitive aspect of the LIS research. The triadic concept of semiotics suggests


12/18

three dimensions and three relations to be analyzed in information behavior studies. The

pragmatic-syntactic relation can be seen as the discussion of how users interact with the

informative materials. The pragmatic-semantic relation can represent the focus on how

users are directed to a certain school of thought. In addition, semiotics reminds us of the

complex syntactic-semantic relation between representation and meaning to be more

carefully addressed, which in most cases, we assume that users will automatically obtain

the knowledge they want once they acquire the right informative materials through the

iterative practice of connecting signifier and signified.

Semiotics has, with reference to Peirce, been applied in IR and indexing (e.g. Blaire, 1990;

Brier, 1996; Mai, 2001), which shows its influences in LIS research. However, the concept

of information as sign has not yet become a fundamental idea of information behavior

research in LIS, which is perhaps due to the reason that the researchers have not seen the

potential of using semiotics as a foundation or a guide for theoretical development to

connect both the material and cognitive aspects of information behavior studies. The

development of theories of information behavior appears to be scattered, which is similar

to the frustration expressed by Fairthorne (1975) about information science: there are too

many labels (theories) for one bottle (information behavior). The lack of a more holistic

approach that can incorporate the epistemological concern in LIS to provide a more

effective and efficient service and system for users to access the informative materials

they really need leads to a realm having diverse or partial explanations of either the

material or cognitive aspect in information behavior research. While we can argue that

partial explanations contribute parts of a whole picture, it is also dangerous to have not a

holistic view of the picture in the first place. Thus, I propose three principles based onsemiotics and pragmatism to accommodate for the lack of a holistic scope for LIS

research in information behavior:

The judgment of the consequences significance in information behavior is to

acknowledge how instrumental the results of a systematic inquiry for knowledge are

to the individual. The relevance of information acquired thus depends on the

perceiver/users judgment of its usefulness to serve his/her purposes. This principle

is a long-standing tradition emphasizing the user-centered approach, and in the

sense of pragmatism, information behavior research should help understand andease the users struggle of finding the right materials in a given system by judging

the relevance of information base on the users perspective.

1.

Despite being a critical part in information behavior, representation as the items of

informative objects is independent from meaning. Thus, the focus of understanding

the process of an individuals information behavior is to identify ones practice of

establishing the connection between representation (signifier) and meaning

(signified). The practice of connecting informative materials to a school of thoughts

2.


13/18

or ideas that will increase users domain knowledge includes both material and

cognitive aspects of information behavior. Not only should information behavior

research identify the sequential steps of a systematic inquiry, but also draw relations

to the development of the users states of knowing.

By accepting the concept of information as sign, three dimensions, including the

pragmatic dimension, the semantic dimension, and the syntactic dimension, and

the relations among them are to be analyzed as a whole in information behavior

research. Semiotics suggests that these three dimensions share a complementary

bond to explain how people need, seek, give and use information in different

contexts in order to obtain knowledge that serves their own purposes.

3.

Conclusion

Science, a way of systematic inquiry according to Pickering (1995), is the mangle of

practice. From a pragmatic view of the process of knowing, while libraries serve as the

institutions of knowledge organization to accommodate peoples information needs,

seeking, and use, the experience of using a library has an individual encounter the

intertwined challenges of machines, instruments, systems, and social practice that

Pickering described as the mangle of the systematic inquiry for knowledge. The tradition

of librarianship, according to Shera, is to provide both physical access to informative

materials and direction to ideas. The question is: Can LIS research find a way to ease

individuals struggles with their environments in the quests of obtaining knowledge?

A common agreement among LIS researchers is the complexity of the study of people. To

design a system in which human factors are involved often includes the challenge of

understanding the mental states of human minds and the apparent physical behaviors of

people at the same time. Information behavior in LIS research is the totality of human

behavior in relation to sources and channels of information, including both active and

passive information seeking, and information use, defined by Wilson, and faces the same

trials as understanding both the material and cognitive aspects of the relation between

people and their use of information. Pragmatism (in LIS) is used to label, for example,

principles for knowledge organization that are built on individuals wishes and behaviors(Sundin & Johannisson, 2004, p. 31). In addition, Raber and Budd (2003, p. 507)

indicated, Both semiotics and information science are concerned with the nature of the

relations between content and its representation, between signifier and signified, between

reference and referent, and between informative objects and their meaning. Both

pragmatism and semiotics have provided directions for answering questions in LIS

research. I believe that the principles derived from semiotic pragmatism to help determine

the consequences of a systematic inquiry for knowledge and analyze the relations among


14/18

the user, the representation, and the meaning of information, can establish a more

holistic approach, one that does not exclude either the material or the cognitive aspect for

the study of information behavior in LIS research.

Acknowledgment

The author would like to express his appreciation to Dr. Philip Doty and Mr. Don Hamerly

for providing comments on substantial portions of the manuscripts.

References

Andersen, P. B. (1997) A theory of computer semiotics: Semiotic approaches to

construction and assessment of computer systems (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

Andersen, P. B. (1991) A semiotic approach to construction and assessment of

computer system In H. E. Nissen, H. K. Klein & R. Hirschheim (Eds.) Information system

research: Contemporary approaches and emergent traditions North-Holland: Elsevier

Science

Blaire, D. C. (1990) Language and Representation in Information Retrieval Oxford:

Elsevier

Brier, S. (1996) Cybersemiotics: a new disciplinary development applied to the problems

of knowledge organization and document retrieval in information science Journal of

Documentation 52(3), p. 296-334

Buckland, M. K. (1991) Information as thing Journal of the American Society for

Information Science 42(5), 351-360

Budd, J. M. (1995) An epistemological foundation for library and information

science Library Quarterly 65(3), 295-318

Budd, J. M. (2001) Knowledge and knowing in library and information Science: A

philosophical frameworkScarecrow Press, Lanham, MD

Budd, J. M. (2005) Phenomenology and information studies Journal of

Documentation 61(1), 44-59

Calway, B. A. (1995) Semiotic approach for object abstraction In E. D. Falkenberg, W.

Hesse, and A. Olive. (Eds.) Information systems concepts: Towards a consolidation of

views. Proceedings of the IFIP International working conferences on information systems

concepts London: Chapman & Hall


15/18

Capurro, R. & Hjrland, B. (2002) The concept of information In Cronin, B. (Ed.) Annual

Review of Information Science and Technology Vol. 37, American Society For Information

Science and Technology Today, Medford, NJ, p. 343-411

Chen, P. (1976) The entity-relationship model: Toward a unified view of data ACM

Transactions on Database Systems 1 (1): 9-36

de Saussure, F. (1959) Course in General Linguistics translated by Wade Baskin.

Philosophical Library, New York, NY

Fairthorne, R. A. (1975) Information: one label, several bottles In Debons, A. & Cameron,

W. J. (Eds) Perspectives in Information Science NATO Advanced Study Institute on

Perspective in Information Science, Aberystwyth. p. 65-73

Fisher, K. E., Erdelez, S., & McKechnie, L. E. F. (Eds.). (2005) Theories of information

behaviorMedford, NJ: Information Today

Gonzales, R. (1997) Hypermedia data modeling, coding and semiotics Proceedings of

the IEEE 85 pp. 1111-1140

Gorn, S. (1983) Informatics (computer and information science): Its ideology,

methodology, and sociology In F. Machlup & U. Mansfield. (Eds.) The study of

information: Interdisciplinary of messages New York: Wiley

Harmon, E. G. (1987) The interdisciplinary study of information: A review essay The

Journal of Library History22(2), 206-227

Hjrland, B. (2002) Domain analysis in information science: 11 approaches-traditional

as well as innovative Journal of Documentation 58(4), 422-462

Hjrland, B. (2005a) Empiricism, rationalism and positivism in library and information

science Journal of Documentation 61(1), 130-155

Hjrland, B. (2005b) Library and information science and the philosophy of

science Journal of Documentation 61(1), 5-10

Hodge, R. & Kress, G. (1988) Social Semiotics Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY

James, W. (1975) Pragmatism Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA.

Johansen, J. D. (1993) Dialogic Semiotics: An Essay on Signs and Meaning Bloomington:

Indiana University Press

Klir, G. J. & Wierman, M. J. (1999) Uncertainty-based information: Elements of

generalized information theory (2nd ed.). Heidelberg, New York: Physica-Verlag


16/18

Liu, K. (2000a) Semiotics in information systems developmentCambridge, New York:

Cambridge University Press

Liu, K. (2000b) Semiotics in information systems engineering Cambridge, New York:

Cambridge University Press

Liu, K., Alderson, A., Shah, H., Sharp, B. & Dix, A. (1999) Applying semiotic methods to

requirements recovery In N. Jayaratna. (Ed.) Methodologies for developing and managing

emerging technology-based information systems Springer-Verlag

Liu, K., Crum, G. & Dines, K. (1998) Design issues in a semiotic description of user

responses to three interfaces Behaviour & Information Technology 17, 175-184

Machlup, F. & Mansfield, U. (1983) Culture diversity in studies of information In F.

Machlup & U. Mansfield. (Eds.) The study of information: Interdisciplinary of

messages New York: Wiley

Machlup, F. (1983) Semantic quirks in studies of information In F. Machlup & U.

Mansfield. (Eds.) The study of information: Interdisciplinary of messages New York: Wiley

Mai, J. (2001) Semiotics and indexing: An analysis of the subject indexing

process Journal of Documentation 57(5), 591-622

Morris, W. C. (1938) Foundations of the theory of signs Chicago, Ill: Univ. Chicago Press

Morris, W. C. (1971) Writings on the general theory of signs Netherlands: Mouton & Co.

N. V.

Murphy, J. P. (1990) Pragmatism: from Peirce to Davidson Westview Press, Boulder, CO

Neill, S. D. (1987) The dilemma of the subjective in information organization and

retrieval Journal of Documentation 43(3), p. 193-211

Ogden, C. K. & Richards, I. A. (1923) The meaning of meaning London: Kegan Paul

Pearson, C. & Slamecka, V. (1983) Perspectives on informatics as a semiotic

discipline In F. Machlup & U. Mansfield, (Eds.) The study of information: Interdisciplinary

of messages New York: Wiley

Peirce, C. S. (1955) Philosophical writings of Peirce Dover Publications, New York, NY

Peirce, C. S. (1960) Collected Papers (1931-1935) edited in 1960 by C. Hartshorne and

P. Weiss. Harvard: Harvard University Press

Pettigrew, K. E., Fidel, R., & Bruce, H. (2001) Conceptual frameworks in information

behavior Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 35, 43-78


17/18

Pettigrew, K. E., & McKechnie, L. (E.F.). (2001) The use of theory in information science

research Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 52(1),

62-73

Pickering, A. (1995) The mangle of practice: Time, agency, & science Chicago: University

of Chicago

Raber, D. & Budd, J. M. (2003) Information as sign: Semiotics and information

science Journal of Documentation 59(5), p. 507-522

Resnik, P. (1999) Semantic similarity in a taxonomy: An information-based measure

and its application to problems of ambiguity in natural language Journal of Artificial

Intelligence Research 11, 95-130

Rorty, R. (1990) Pragmatism as anti-representationalism In Murphy, J. P. Pragmatism:

from Peirce to Davidson Westview Press, Boulder, CO. pp. 1-6

Rorty, R. (1999) Philosophy and Social Hope Penguin Books, London

Shannon, C. E. & Weaver, W. (1963) The mathematical theory of communication Urbana:

The University of Illinois Press

Shera, J. (1972) An epistemological foundation for library science In The foundation of

education for librarianship p. 7-35. New York: John Wiley & Sons

Souza, C. S. (1993) The semiotic engineering of user interface languages International

Journal of Man-Machine Studies 39, 753-773

Stamper, R., Liu, K., Hafkamp, M. & Ades, Y. (2000) Understanding the roles of signs

and norms in organizations-a semiotic approach to information systems design Behaviour

& Information Technology 19(1), 15-27

Sundin, O. & Johannisson, J. (2005) Pragmatism, neo-pragmatism and sociocultural

theory: Communicative participation as a perspective in LIS Journal of


Svenonius, E. (2000) The intellectual foundation of information organization Cambridge,

Massachusetts: The MIT Press

Wagner, G. S. (1992) Public Library as Agents of Communication: A Semiotic

Analysis Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, NJ

Warner, J. (1990) Semiotics, information science, documents and computers Journal of

Documentation 46(1), p. 16-32

Wilson, T. D. (1999) Models in information behavior research Journal of


18/18


Documents

Huang Semiotic